[colug-432] 24-bit Sound Input

[Dave Maxwell]

I'm going to be digitizing some vinyl records and would like a 24-bit sound 
device preferably USB to do it.  I want such "overkill" because with 16-bit  
you have to carefully adjust the input levels to get the signal as hot as 
possible without clipping.  When doing records in the past, I've had to play 
a side through a time or two to find the optimum level.

With 24-bit, I need only average slightly more than half the input level, 
normalize my finished edits and downsample to 16-bit 48kHz for mp3 or flac.
It would be a lot easier.  I'm not interested in being an audiophile, I just 
want a more forgiving and faster way to sample and edit as I have a fairly 
large stack of vinyl.  24 bit helps with this the way that large studio tape 
formats help.   Super wide dynamic range allows for less destructive editing 
and lets me most easily extract the maximum fidelity from the 16 bit formats 
I'll actually listen to daily.

So I'd like some thoughts on what is the least expensive decent hardware that 
accomplishes this.  Though I'll consider a PCI card, USB gives you a cleaner 
signal as you are not digitizing inside a noisy PC case.

Dave 
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